To me, that we are the result of chemistry does not reduce us. It does not make humans any less special. We are truly wonders of nature, and I am in awe at our abilities. But I do accept prevailing scientific theory which holds that everything we are—thought, emotion, belief, etc.—can be explained by chemical processes. I certainly do not understand how chemistry produces art and science, and that only increases my awe. And humans never fail to inspire me.
Have any of you heard of graphene? Supposedly a very strong material. I once thought that with a thin layer of graphene, you could make an invisible sheet that might stop air. Like plastic. Then you could potentially make a bag of it and put this bag on someone, and they would suffocate without knowing what's killing them. Neat huh? If that is how graphene works... I think this question depends on too many variables. How big is the rock? What is the rock's velocity? The shape of the rock? Did someone throw the rock? Did the rock fall randomly from some height? Etc...
What about the subatomic processes inside an atom - are those the domain of chemistry, or physics? And if I am aware of a mathematical law - for argument's sake Pythagoras' theorem - is that only my neuron chemistry, or does the mathematical law exist outside of mine and others' brain chemistry? I'll warrant that if we could find a powerful enough microscope, we could perhaps find my brain, and within it the neuron clusters that remember that a^2+b^2=c^2. But is that really sufficient to explain my knowing it? Don't I know it because it's true? And wouldn't it still be true even if nobody knew it, and even if all the matter in the universe happened to be rearranged into a circle?
I may be able to help with that... My whole life is electron microscopy. Chemistry and physics are often one in the same. In the case of the infinitesimally small, this is true.
But even now, you seem to resist saying there are emotions, thoughts, ideas, memories and motivations inside us. Those are the things we're aware of. The chemistry and physics happens in a region completely inaccessible to us without the aid of scientific instruments. Oh well, often what we say and what we do are quite different. When you write a story detailing the journeys of electrons and the merging and affairs of chemicals, then I'll believe you're a materialist. That's a recent reductive position that tries to minimize the humanity. A lot of scientists are weird people who had more microscopes than friends and took refuge in science to avoid socializing. I went a different way—my refuge was in art and story. As I said before, the science is vitally important, but so is the humanity inside us. Neither negates the other. I see myself as a human being, whose body is made of atoms and chemicals. And I believe you do too. We tend to compartmentalize, so we can claim to be materialists when we're in 'the science' mode, while writing as full-fledged humanists.
@Louanne Learning —you made several posts about dark matter above. It does have some importance to me, to the extent that my name on an old blog was Darkmatters. But I didn't care much about the actual science behind it. Here's my blurb from that blog (Hah! A blog-blurb!): Dark Matter - we can't see it, we can't detect it, and yet it needs to be there in order for the universe to behave the way it does. Of course it's only one of many unproven theories, but here's what it means to me -- Sometimes the most important things are those we can't understand or quantify; that which remains mysterious in this modern world dominated by rational materialism. As a worldview rational materialism is an attack on the human. Yes, I take a very Romantic (in the original sense) position on the issue. I feel much the same about today's rational materialism as Victorian era artists and poets did about the encroaching Industrial Revolution that turned people into units to be distributed into all the factories to churn out product at all costs, including lung cancer from all the smoke polluting those cobblestoned London streets in all the Dickens stories and the Doré engravings.
Is that the prevailing theory? It seems to me science is well short of explaining consciousness (and the various aspects of consciousness in human experience--art, human experience, and the like). I know there are those pursuing purely chemical explanations. There are also those looking at quantum physics. And those looking elsewhere. Has the 'chemical process' approach been more successful than other approaches?
I saw something a while back about a view among some astrophysicists that there's something going on that we don't understand and doesn't quite jive with our current understanding of gravity, and that they're pursuing that to try to eliminate the need for 'dark matter' as a way to explain observation. However, I don't remember what it was and don't have expertise to comment on the validity of the approach--I just thought it was interesting and I am fairly sure I saw it in a reputable publication.
Here's a post I made on the Darkmatters blog many years ago: "There's a side to the human personality that somehow senses that wherever the cosmic truth may lie, it doesn't lie in A, B, C, D. It lies somewhere in the mysterious, unknowable aspects of human thought and life experience. Man has always responded to it. Religion, mythology, allegories - it's always been one of the most responsive chords in man. With rationalism, modern man has tried to eliminate it, and successfully dealt some pretty jarring blows to religion. In a sense what's happening now with films and popular music is a reaction to the stifling limitations of rationalism." - Stanley Kubrick interviewed by William Kloman, New York Times He must've said that in the 60's or early 70's when a lot of movies and music were going pretty experimental and surreal. There was a time when I was definitely a rationalist and a hardcore atheist. But I started having intuitions and thoughts along the lines of what Kubrick said above, and similar ideas, and then I started running into a lot of ideas that turned the tide for me.
Physics. Because whether an atom is part of a living or non-living thing does not alter how it behaves. Biology is explained by chemistry, chemistry is explained by physics, and physics is explained by mathematics. I love this question. I would say the law would exist in the absence of humans. After all, what science does is try to describe and explain reality. You're conflating brain and mind. Brain is the structure, mind is the function. And let's face it, there is a lot we do not understand about the mind.
Honestly, I have never considered myself a materialist. I am fully aware that the human experience is real. The feeling of a soul is real. A mother's love is real. Joy, curiosity, friendship, kindness, generosity, self-sacrifice ... all very real. What does it matter how they originated? Does that lessen their impact? Does that change the human experience? I couldn't agree more! But in questions that ask what are we?—I go with the evidence.
Biology is explained by chemistry, chemistry is explained by physics, and physics is explained by mathematics.
Rational materialism is only dangerous when it loses sight of humanity. Knowledge is always a good thing. How the knowledge is applied marks the difference. Knowing what I am does not prevent me from enjoying the full human experience. And understanding what I am fills me with the greatest awe. Can I have it both ways? Can I be a materialist and an idealist at the same time? I think so. It doesn't have to be either-or. Electro-chemistry may be what's going on inside my head, but I definitely control my thoughts and my beliefs.
Yes, I see what you mean now based on your post re: chemistry, physics, and math. I'm of the same view. I don't see any reason to resort to any kind of mind/body dualism.
It strikes me that if we could explain explaining that might unlock whole new vistas of science. Is it biological, chemical, or mathematical?
If it is made of cells - it's biological. (Viruses don't have cells but they are studied in biology since they need living cells to replicate.) If it's about the interactions of atoms and molecules - it's chemical. If it's about the fundamental constituents of matter - it's physics. And mathematics is the ultimate explanation for it all.
Science is utterly incapable of exploring consciousness. It can't be dissected or put on a microscope slide, weighed or measured. It isn't physical, and by its own admission science is restricted to the study of the physical world. Yes, it can study energy, but I think that's obliquely, only by studying its effects on matter. Matter is the domain of science, and consciousness is dark matter, opaque to all the lenses of all the scopes the scientists can bring to bear. The only way to study the inner world of thought, ideas, emotion, feelings, etc is through self-reporting of others and your own inner experiences. It isn't even what would be called the 'evidence of your senses', because the sensory organs are aimed outward. The only way to access it is through the evidence of your own innermost experience. And that's a realm where science can gather no evidence, except the pseudo-science of psychology and its ilk. But experiments in the psyche and the mind are not repeatable and never will be, nor are they—what's the word? Disprovable? Something like that. I can't remember, but it's a requirement to qualify as science. People looking for scientific certainty don't like the slippery, insubstantial mind. It's a phantom, a ghost in the machine of the body. Actually there's no certainty in science either though. Any real scientist will attest to that. It's a system of hypotheses and theories that are constantly upgrading. As soon as you take any of them as certainties new evidence comes out (look out Einstein, here comes Quantum Mechanics!) Yes, of course consciousness arises somehow from the body, the way light arises from the physical body of a light bulb when electricity flows through it. But light is simple energy compared to consciosuness. Materialist science claims consciosusness is nothing but an emergent property of electrons moving through the brain (though it really doesn't know that). But 'emergent property' means about as much as saying that the movies we watch are nothing but patterns of light and darkness projected on a screen and accompanied by vibrations that we call sound. It's true as far as it goes, but it leaves a lot out!! The movie analogy misses story, personality interaction, the swelling passion of emotion arising from image and music combined perfectly etc. And even with all that added, there's far more involved in consciosuness (even in dreams). To me calling human consciousness an emergent property of matter has the ring of calling people meat puppets. It implies a shuffling zombie lifelessness. It leaves out the mind, the heart, and the soul. Thank you for your attention (if you made it this far) This has been a Xoic presentation.
Yeah, it can be described that way, as long as we realize it basically means "We don't really know what the hell it is, but here are some words." Personally I refuse to let scientists tell me what consciosuness is (what I am), any more than I'd let one tell me what a sunset is. They can't capture the experience of the real thing. Their reductive explanations are like throat-warbling about philosophy. Especially since as I said, they freely admit science is limited to the study of the phyhsical world. Is consciosuness a part of that? Sorry, but they're out of their area of expertise.
